Kiwi-British soprano Catherine Hooper is a graduate of the Royal College of Music and the universities of Cambridge and St Andrews. Catherine won third prize and the Tait Memorial Trust Prize in the 2025 Joan Sutherland Richard Bonynge Bel Canto Award. She has previously been an Opera Prelude Young Artist, SongEasel Young Artist, OperaUpClose Associate Artist, and member of the Glyndebourne Chorus. Recent roles include Musetta (La bohème, Devon Opera), Senta (The Flying Dutchman, OperaUpClose), and Woman in the touring production for soprano and harp, We Two Were Lovers  – The Sea and I (OperaUpClose). While studying at the RCM, Catherine covered the Queen of the Night (Die Zauberflöte) with the RCM Opera Studio and performed extracts from various roles in opera scenes, including Countess (Le Nozze di Figaro), Donna Anna (Don Giovanni) and Alcina. She has since reprised the role of the Queen of the Night with the Royal Opera House Create & Sing Programme.

 

During her undergraduate degree at the University of St Andrews, Catherine sang regularly with the Scottish Byre Opera, including as Vixen Sharp-Ears (The Cunning Little Vixen) and Miss Jessel (The Turn of the Screw). She also performed Belinda (Dido and Aeneas) and Lieschen in a staged performance of Bach's Coffee Cantata, both as part of the On the Rocks Festival. During her postgraduate degree at Cambridge, Catherine sang Frasquita (Carmen) with the Cambridge University Opera Society, La Musique (Les arts florissants) with Cambridge Baroque Ensemble, and Dido (Dido and Aeneas) with the Dorian Chamber Orchestra.

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Catherine has sung widely in concert, particularly in China, where she tours regularly as a recitalist, performing in venues including the Wuhan Qintai Concert Hall. She is particularly interested in performing music by female composers and is a founding member of the female-focused 97 Ensemble, with whom she has performed in venues including the Royal Albert Hall Elgar Room. Catherine has also been a soloist for a number of major religious and concert works, including Fauré's Requiem, Handel's Messiah, Haydn's Nelson Mass, St John Passion (Bach), Petite messe solennelle (Rossini), and Mass in D Minor (Dvořák). Catherine has been generously supported by Help Musicians, the Open Music Foundation, the Mario Lanza Educational Foundation, and the Kathleen Trust.